So what makes him better than Hitler?...He didnt oppress whites.

[kpete]

Ken Burns told me Robert E Lee killed more Americans than Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Saddam Hussein & Osama bin Laden combined.

Link to tweet

[standingtall]

1. Huh pretty sure

he killed a bunch of white union soldiers. So that rules out not oppressing whites. Well I guess he didn't send small children to gas chambers so maybe he has Hitler there.

[sarisataka]

2. Unless he is speaking

Of people killed personally, he may want to check his math.

[unblock]

3. he's talking about specifically *americans* killed.

hitler killed far more people total, just not as many *americans*.

[sarisataka]

4. Yes I am aware of that.

And stand by my statement. That claim is not even close to true.

[unblock]

5. here's a link for some quick math:

not clear whether we're meant to attribute all civil war deaths on lee or just the union soldiers.
if it's all civil war fatalities, then it's clear he's got more. until recently, the civil war cost more american lives than all other wars combined, and it's still the biggest number of fatalities if you drop a few of the wars that aren't in that particular list (e.g., wwi).



https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/civil-war-facts

Q. How many soldiers died in the Civil War?
Approximately 620,000 soldiers died from combat, accident, starvation, and disease during the Civil War. This number comes from an 1889 study of the war performed by William F. Fox and Thomas Leonard Livermore. Both men fought for the Union. Their estimate is derived from an exhaustive study of the combat and casualty records generated by the armies over five years of fighting. A recent study puts the number of dead as high as 850,000.

Casualties by War
Q. How many soldiers died in the Civil War as compared to other American wars?
Roughly 1,264,000 American soldiers have died in the nation's wars--620,000 in the Civil War and 644,000 in all other conflicts. It was only as recently as the Vietnam War that the amount of American deaths in foreign wars eclipsed the number who died in the Civil War.

[sarisataka]

6. Yes if you count all Civil War casualties that would be true.

I believe it would be an exaggeration to credit Lee with all deaths of the Civil War.

First off he only commanded the army of Northern Virginia for the majority of the war. He was not a supreme commander of all fronts.
Second, many of the deaths in the Civil War we're not do to combat. The union had approximately 110,000 KIA and another 220,000 to 250,000 that died from other causes.
Even if Lee is credited for all of these deaths, he is barely equal to us deaths in the European theater of World War II.

I believe it is a fair statement to say that Lee was responsible for the majority of Union deaths and likely would account for more than US deaths in Vietnam. However looking at only Battlefield deaths, as most people would given that statement, the list of deaths outnumber Lee's by 4 to 1.

Without looking at very specific numbers, I would say the general statement that Lee caused more American deaths than any foreign General would be true.

[unblock]

7. not sure why you wouldn't could the deaths from "other causes"

just because someone died from infection weeks later rather than bleeding out on the battlefield doesn't really change who is responsible for that death.

i'm also thinking that he meant to attribute confederate deaths to him as well, as he led them to their deaths.

i agree that it's an unfortunate comparison in the sense that lee was a general whereas the others were political leaders. the political leaders quite arguably had far more to do with getting americans killed than did generals in the sense that the political leaders held the on/off switch. no secession, no war. whereas lee was "only" leading the fight that others had made happen. were it not for lee, it would have been a different general and a very similar result. maybe some more deaths, maybe fewer. whereas were it not for hitler, one would hope that that period on europe might have been massively different.

[kpete]

8. thank you